Violence against Women and Girls

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

I am grateful to have been called to speak in this important and timely debate. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler), who has been a strong voice for women and girls since her election.

It is estimated that, in Hull, almost 25,000 women and more than 18,000 children will experience domestic violence each year. To put that in real terms, three or four children in every classroom experience domestic violence. Humberside police respond to some 55 incidents of domestic violence every month, and 81% of victims are female. Children who live with domestic violence have an increased risk of behavioural problems and emotional trauma. Mental health difficulties will definitely arise in their adult lives as a result of their experiences.

Hull has been working hard to address the problem. The local primary care trust, working with Hull city council, has implemented the Strength to Change programme. This is a voluntary scheme aimed at men who are often the perpetrators of domestic violence. It is a groundbreaking project that makes a real difference to victims of violence. There is an excellent women’s centre in my constituency, Purple House, which provides support for hundreds of women victims. However, cuts are affecting these projects, and there is currently a review to decide whether these vital services are necessary—they definitely are.

The total cost of domestic abuse to the criminal justice system, health, social services and housing amounts to approximately £3.8 billion a year. It is clear that to prevent violence against women and girls, we need to do more to ensure both young men and young women are educated to develop positive and equal relationships with their peers. That education and support must start in schools. Statutory personal relationship education and early intervention in schools will help to change attitudes and behaviour towards domestic violence. Schools need to play a key role in educating boys and girls to realise that violence and abuse in relationships are completely unacceptable. I therefore urge the Government to make sex and relationships education statutory and standardised.

In the time left, I want to speak to an issue that is an absolute catastrophe and a scandal: female genital mutilation. The Government estimate that approximately 20,000 under-15-year-olds are at risk from this practice every year—more than 50 young female victims every day. It is important to make the point that such mutilation is motivated only by the need to control women. It is bullying, and the most grotesque abuse towards women. Female genital mutilation has been a criminal offence since 1985. It is shocking that we have not yet seen a single prosecution. We have seen some positive steps in recent weeks and months, with the Crown Prosecution Service refocusing on this area, and I welcome the publication of its action plan. However, to eradicate this practice we need cross-departmental work involving the Home Office, Department for Education, Department of Health and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and proper funding. We need to secure justice for victims and prosecution will prevent future victims of this despicable criminality. We must remember that this is a crime and that people should face the law when they carry out this vile and abusive violence.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

I welcome the speech that the hon. Gentleman is making, and I also welcome the Westminster Hall debate he secured recently on this topic. I am sure he welcomes, as I do, the commitment the Home Secretary made on Monday to look closely at bringing forward a prevalence study in the UK to update our data, and, in particular, to make sure that the NHS records female genital mutilation.

[Karl Turner]

I agree entirely with the hon. Lady, who has done a great deal of work on this issue as the chair of the all-party group on female genital mutilation.

I will make one final point. The Metropolitan police set up Project Azure to tackle the problem of female genital mutilation across the country. However, a freedom of information request showed that the team consists of just one full-time police officer and one part-time police officer. It is simply ridiculous to suggest that this is sufficient policing. I welcome the Home Secretary’s work, but we need more resources to police this most disgusting violence against women and young girls.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to this important debate. I congratulate its sponsors, and especially the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), who opened the debate.

First, I will discuss female genital mutilation, as I have done in previous debates, but I will not talk exclusively about that subject. We have made great progress over the past few years and as a result many more Members are now talking about FGM. We have brought it into the mainstream of our political discourse, which will assist us in making further progress. FGM is a terrible thing that affects hundreds of thousands of girls around the world and here in the UK.

I want to thank some of the people and organisations who are helping to make progress. The recent Crown Prosecution Service action plan is not just words on a piece of paper; it has genuine heart and intent behind it, and I hope it will lead to real progress. The all-party group on female genital mutilation has had some very productive meetings with Ofsted over the past year or so. It has seized on this subject, and has agreed to ask specific safeguarding questions around FGM when visiting schools that have girls from identified at-risk communities. That will also drive change.

The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) has very passionately brought to our attention the One Billion Rising campaign. She and I have debated that campaign, because as a result of my experiences in addressing FGM, I have become a little jaundiced about the possibility of changing things solely through education. Over the almost 25 years that FGM has been illegal in this country, there have been almost no referrals through the education system. In fact, it is quite difficult to get people working in education to talk about FGM issues. At the recent Home Office roundtable, a senior local government leader in London admitted that when she trained the teachers in her local authority about how to deal with FGM in schools, many of them point-blank refused to teach that it was a crime, saying that that would infringe on some people’s cultural values. That is absolutely not on. As a result, particularly in respect of FGM, I am cautious as to whether we can rely solely on education. We must instead have a multi-agency approach and massive cultural education.

I will support the motion, of course, but we must not give the message to the people who are listening so intently to this debate that we think the One Billion Rising campaign is the only answer, because we know there is so much more to do. It might be part of the answer, but I know the Minister will talk about some of the other things that are going on, too, and we must make it clear that it is not a silver bullet and that there are lots of other steps we need to take—many of which colleagues have alluded to in the debate.

I want to thank the Home Office, too. In November 2011, I spoke about the Dutch health passport on FGM and in less than a year—this must be record time for any Government Department to put something into action— it has brought our own version of that passport, the statement against FGM, into use in the UK. I have spoken to FGM campaigner Sister Fa, who wants to get the German Government to adopt the idea. I therefore hope that there will be a ripple effect across Europe.

People have asked, “Is it really a passport?” I always answer, “No, it’s an empowerment document.” I hope it will empower some of the girls who have been through FGM to help their little sisters when they go back to their country of origin, so that they say to extended family members, “You’re not going to do to my little sister what you did to me, and here’s something that will tell you what the consequences are if you do.” The document will empower girls to help protect other girls.

My hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry) referred to cases involving two of my constituents. One was the tragic case of Chevonea Kendall-Bryan. She died in terrible circumstances, with lots of dreadful sexting and other things circulating about her. It was a dreadful incident. The other incident my hon. Friend mentioned involved a little girl who, for obvious reasons, I will not name. I spoke to her mother this morning. She re-emphasised that the problem of sexual texting and imagery going around in schools is horrendously widespread. I return to an earlier point: what do we do if we cannot stop it happening even in school, and right under the nose of teachers? This little 12-year-old girl was physically penetrated by a 12-year-old boy with his fingers in class under the nose of the teacher. We have got to get a grip on what is happening right now. It is not just about education; it is about stopping crimes being committed in class.

Most—although perhaps not all—of us in this Chamber went to school before mobile phones were invented, let alone widespread. We do not know all the answers, therefore, and there will be girls listening to and reading this debate who might know more about what we can do. The mother of that 12-year-old girl said to me that some of the other girls in class were jealous of her daughter because they thought she had been singled out for sexual attention. If I were to send just one message out to these girls, it would be this: “Please stand together. It is not cool. It is absolutely dreadful. Make sure you don’t speak to those boys or have anything to do with them if they do this to your classmates.” We have to stand together on this issue.